


Learn To Do It

by Ladybugbear2



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:20:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybugbear2/pseuds/Ladybugbear2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Gold finds out that his 3 1/2 year-old-son will be deaf within the year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gold,” Dr. Johnson said with a grim set to his mouth. “But there’s nothing we can do. The otitis media has progressed too far for us to be able to do anything to reverse its effects.”

“It’s progressed too far? What does that mean?”

“At this rate, it is likely that he will lose all of his hearing within the next year.”

“Within the year? My boy is going to be completely deaf in less than a year? What do I do? How can you fix this?” 

“Deafness is not something that can be ‘fixed,’ Mr. Gold. However, there are options, a cochlear implant is one of those. It’s still a relatively new technology, and it doesn’t always work, but it can restore a great deal of hearing if it does work. Another choice is hearing aids; again, they aren’t 100% effective, but they can help Bae with environmental sounds. Something that comes in handy when there’s a car coming down the road. The last thing to look at is sign language, although, if you go down that route it would be best if you learned it as well. I can give you a pamphlet on all three of these.”

The doctor handed him the pamphlets and left the room to give him some time to mull over what he’d just learned. He’d figured something was wrong with Bae a couple of days ago when his son stopped responding immediately to his name being called. As the week went on, he had started noticing Bae straining to hear him speak and not responding to directions correctly. Putting his cup on the coffee table instead of the kitchen table, placing his stuffed bear on the bench instead of the couch when it was time for dinner. They were all simple things, really; things that wouldn’t have bothered him if he hadn’t noticed that Bae didn’t immediately respond to his name anymore - this change, coupled with the fact that Bae’s teachers at the daycare had started sending notes home about his recent lack of responsiveness, was why they were currently at the doctor’s office.

But looking at the little boy that was sitting in his lap and playing with one of the buttons on his jacket, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed the signs earlier. Bae had always been a fairly talkative little boy. He’d babbled a lot as a baby and had started talking as soon as he possibly could, but in the last few months he’d quieted down a lot. Gold had chalked it up to a natural response to Milah leaving, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Bae had been slow to respond even before Milah left. It had just been so tense in the house that he must have assumed his boy was picking up on his parents’ emotions and acting accordingly.

As it was, he was grateful that Milah had left before Bae lost his hearing. He didn’t want Bae to think that Milah had left because of him; there would be no doubt in his son’s eyes as to who was to blame for his mother leaving him.

He sat in the room for about fifteen minutes, thinking about what he’d just learned. His son was deaf, or he was going to be deaf very soon. His boy would never hear him call his name. He’d never blast his music in his room and force Gold to yell at him to turn it down; Gold would never be able to yell for his son at all. His son wouldn’t call him papa anymore. And that was when it really hit him. His son wouldn’t call him papa. He’d go back to being Gold, and that’s it. Very few people knew his first name, and of those who knew it, there were even fewer still that were brave enough to call him by it. He’d been papa for almost four years. He’d called himself papa to Bae, Milah had called him papa to Bae, but there really wouldn’t be a point to that if Bae were deaf. 

At that point, he decided he’d had enough of sitting in a sterile room. There really wasn’t anything else the doctor could help them with. And he was starting to find the bright paintings and the cutesy pictures on the walls nauseating. Gold paid for the visit and started the trek back to Storybrooke. He didn’t like to go to Storybrooke General if he could help it. Gold didn’t even trust Dr. Whale with his own life, there was no way he was going to let him come near Bae.

That night, after putting Bae to sleep, he grabbed the pamphlets and headed to his office. The cochlear implant was described as “a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.” It required surgery that apparently destroyed all residual hearing. He put that aside, not wanting to dismiss it outright, but disliking the idea of it; if Bae still had some hearing left by the end of the year, he didn’t want to destroy it for a procedure that might not even work.

The next one he picked up was about hearing aids. Apparently, they were meant to help with environmental sounds like cars or sirens. They came in all different shapes and sizes, and while they wouldn’t fix hearing and didn’t help as much as an implant did, they were useful.

The last pamphlet was on sign language. Reading about it, he learned that there were different types of sign language. The one used most prevalently in the United States was ASL or American Sign Language. An alternative to that was Signed English, but it was much less prevalent. Each country seemed to have its own sign language. There was no unified language for the deaf that allowed them to speak to others from around the world. Apparently ASL had its own grammar and was a lot more involved than he originally thought. Turning to his computer, he found that there was a deaf culture and community. It seemed to be a fairly involved one at that, he found a few forums and from what he could tell there was a large amount of what was called Deaf pride. It seemed Deaf people were happy being Deaf. They didn’t want to be fixed. There was nothing broken about them. The more he learned about the Deaf community and the importance of sign language the more determined he was to learn it and have Bae learn it. If the boy wanted a cochlear implant when he was older, then they would look into it. But for now it seemed like sign language would suit them just fine.

The next morning, Gold awoke to the sound of Bae talking to one of his stuffed animals in his room. It was a bit louder than it usually was, or perhaps it wasn’t and Gold was just realizing that Bae was talking louder so he could hear himself. Whatever it was, it was enough to wake him up. Deciding to stay in his pajamas for breakfast, he grabbed his cane and went to the door across the hall. He walked in and went over to Bae’s toddler bed and leaned down to ruffle his hair, causing the little boy to start and look up. His face split into a grin the moment he saw his papa, though, and he lifted his arms.

“Papa, up please?” Bae asked, tilting his head so he could hear the response.

“Yes, lad,” Gold said with a sad smile. “Time to get up.” He hooked his cane on the foot of Bae’s bed and lifted the boy up before grabbing the cane again. “Let’s go get breakfast, yeah?”  
Bae nodded and they set out toward the kitchen.

Setting Bae down in his chair, he set about getting their breakfasts put together. When he next looked over at his son, he saw that Bae was playing with the letters that were on the placemat: he was arranging them into different combinations but the one he kept going back to making was his name, Bae. It was simple, but it was something that showed that no matter what, his boy would be okay. Gold would be able to teach him sign language, or find someone to teach him sign language and Gold would teach him English so Bae would have the best of both worlds.

Now all that was left was to find some way to learn sign language and to research schools for Bae to go to. Surely there were schools for the deaf.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wonderful betas are standbyyourmantis/lizandletdie and thelasthomelyurl

That night, after putting Bae to bed, he sat down in front of the computer and started some research into possible schools in Maine that Bae could attend. To his horror, he learned about a scandal that occurred at the Maine School for the Deaf. The next hour was spent learning about the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, and what he learned made sure that he would never be sending his son to that school, never in a million years would he subject his boy to a school that had that in its past. The thought of someone taking advantage of his boy just because he couldn’t hear filled him with such terror and revulsion that he almost gagged. If this was the world Bae was going to have to live in, then he was almost afraid to let him ever leave the house again. 

He would home school the boy, then -- or better yet, find him a tutor. That would be perfect. A tutor who was hard of hearing, or maybe a tutor who had deaf parents, someone who could teach both of them sign language and teach Bae English. It would be the best of both worlds. He’d put an ad out tomorrow.

The ad went out and he waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed no one wanted to move to a small town like Storybrooke just to tutor a little boy. After about a month, he was getting desperate; Bae’s hearing was continuing to deteriorate and he wanted to have a way to communicate with his son before it went completely. Online sites helped marginally, but there was only so much one could learn from the computer. In the end, he decided to go to the library to see if perhaps a book would be a better teacher than the computer.

It was lucky that he had the chance to go to the library in Storybrooke. It had only recently been reopened; a process that he’d had little to do with as the library was, in fact, not a building he owned. He’d met the librarian, of course. She was fairly young, having recently gotten her master’s degree in library science, something Mayor Mills had absolutely insisted on before allowing the library to reopen. She was quite short, and had startling blue eyes, but other than that he knew next to nothing about her. Perhaps she had been able to whip the library into shape since the last time he’d been there. If he remembered correctly, there were few shelves and even fewer books -- although he now recalled that there had been a book drive recently. Opening the door to the library, he was pleased to see that there were more shelves than he remembered and more books as well -- generally good signs when one came to a library. Passing the circulation desk, he headed to the area that advertised foreign languages. He’d read that American Sign Language was its own language with its own grammar and syntax, and he hoped that the librarian was up to speed on that fact. He found a section that looked promising and was pleased to see a couple of books on ASL, one for everyday use, another for business, and a last for children. He picked up the one for everyday use and the one for children and went to the front to check out.

“Hello, Mr. Gold,” the librarian said brightly. “Find everything okay?”

“I did, thank you.”

She smiled as she took the books from him, but paused upon seeing what the subject of the books was.

“Looking to learn sign language?”

“No of course not,” he said sarcastically. “I generally check books out for no reason at all.”

“It was a simple question, sir,” she replied icily. “I merely asked because I happen to be fluent in sign language and thought you might want some help.” 

His head shot up at that and he stared wide-eyed at her before realizing that she must have something she wanted to get out of this. Surely she’d heard from someone that he was notorious for making deals and that he owned most of the town.

“What would be in it for you, dearie?”

“My name is Belle,” she said firmly. “And there’s nothing in it for me. I know sign language, I’m actually taking classes on nights and weekends in deaf education, and you look like you could use some help. Is there…” she regarded him carefully before continuing, “...is there any particular reason for your sudden wish to learn?”

He thought about snapping at her and telling her to mind her own business, but she was offering to teach him sign language. And even he wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could learn something better from a book than he could from a person.

“My son.”

She furrowed her brow at that.   
“Baden, right? I think I heard Mary Margaret say that he was friends with her daughter, Emma, at daycare.” 

He nodded his head in assent.

“He’s losing his hearing,” Gold said softly. “The doctor said it would be gone within the year. I figured it would be beneficial to learn sign language so I could teach it to him.” 

“Well, if you want, I could teach both of you.” She looked almost afraid as she said this, as if she were worried he’d refuse her. “I’m fluent. Both of my parents were deaf.”

“That would -” he struggled with choosing the right words “- that would be wonderful.”

“Well, I have Sundays off, if that sounds okay to you.”

“Perfect,” Gold said with what could probably pass as a smile. “Bae and I will expect you at one?”

“I’ll be there,” she said with a grin. “It’s the Victorian, right? The salmon colored one?” 

“That’s the one.” 

He grabbed his books and made a hasty retreat. This girl, this Belle French, had offered to teach him and his son sign language. She had offered her services freely, even after he’d snapped at her.

He was still reeling when he got back to his shop. Belle had been in Storybrooke the entire time. He hadn’t even thought to look in Storybrooke for someone to teach him sign language, and the perfect candidate had been under his nose the whole time.

Flipping the sign on his shop to closed, he went into the back room to look over the books he’d gotten. At least he could get a head start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you standbyyourmantis and thelasthomelyurl for your help!!!


End file.
